Jim Robson Finals: New Jersey Swamp Devils vs. Halifax Citadels

[Sturminator]

New Jersey Swamp Devils

Head Coach = Hap Day
Assistant Coach = Frank Patrick

Aurele Joliat - Cyclone Taylor - Bryan Hextall, Sr
Tommy Smith - Eric Lindros - Vic Stasiuk
Johnny Gottselig (A) - Neil Colville - Rejean Houle / Wilf Paiement
Bob Davidson - Red Sullivan - Wilf Paiement / Rejean Houle


Slava Fetisov (C) - Vladimir Lutchenko
Jim Schoenfeld (A) - Harry Cameron
Wade Redden - Al Arbour

Hugh Lehman
Pekka Lindmark​

Spares: Tom Anderson (LW/D), Charlie Sands (C/RW), Clem Loughlin, D

PP1: Smith - Taylor - Hextall - Cameron - Fetisov
PP2: Joliat - Lindros - Gottselig - Colville - Lutchenko

PK1: Sullivan - Gottselig - Schoenfeld - Arbour
PK2: Colville - Davidson - Fetisov - Lutchenko
PK3: Houle - Paiement (Houle can play C)

Vs.​

Halifax Citadels

GMs: Stoneberg & rmartin65
Coach: Art Ross
Captain: Pulford
Alternate Captains: Mayorov, Howe

Roster
Bobby Hull - Syd Howe(A) - Glenn Anderson
George Hay - Frank Fredrickson - Andy Bathgate
Adam Graves - Walt Tkaczuk - Frank Finnigan
Boris Mayorov(A) - Ivan Hlinka - Brian Rolston

Borje Salming - Harvey Pulford(C)
Jan Suchý - Gary Bergman
Jerry Korab - Vasili Pervukhin

Tom Barrasso
Gerry Cheevers

Spares:
Al MacAdam, W
Art Chapman, C
Kris Letang, D
Normand Rochefort, D


1st PP Unit
Howe - Anderson
Bathgate - Hull
Salming

Salming at the top of the umbrella
Hull & Bathgate on on their "off" wings at either end of the umbrella
Howe collecting pucks and set up down low
Anderson to the front of the net when we have possession

2nd PP Unit
Mayorov - Fredrickson - Graves (net)
Suchý - Hull/Rolston

Hull should be fine playing the majority

PK Forwards
Tkaczuk - Finnigan
Rolston - Graves

PK Defensemen
Korab - Pulford
Salming - Bergman
​

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[TheDevilMadeMe]

Congrats on making the finals, guys. I really like your team. I really hope you'll be able to say a few words this round. If not, I hope others chime in if they think I'm being unfair.

Hap Day was a coach who cared a lot about matchups (using Bob Davidson to shadow Rocket Richard for years, to great effect), and with home ice advantage in case of a 7 game series, I can see him really pushing to get the matchups he wants against Bobby Hull and Andy Bathgate. I can see him going for the following:

Vs Bobby Hull: Bobby Hull is a superstar even at this level. I can see Day using Rejean Houle as a shadow. Houle's NHL career didn't overlap with Hull's for very long (and Hull didn't list Houle as one of the top 3 forwards to ever shadow him - I saw something about this earlier this draft; does anyone know where? ) But Houle drew rave reviews for his work shadowing Hull in the 1971 Cup finalist, helping hold Hull to 1 even strength goal (see Houle's profile for a lot of details), and he was known as an effective shadow well after Hull had left the NHL. How I see this working:

Houle will take shifts on any of NJ's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lines, with a preference for playing on the 3rd line, depending on when Hull is on the ice. NJ's primary "checking" line at even strength will then be the 3rd line, where Neil Colville would take the Henri Richard role of breaking up outlet passes from Halifax's defensemen (mainly Salming and Suchy) to Bobby Hull. (Henri Richard's ability to break up outlet passes from Pilote to Hull was sometimes considered as important as Provost/Houle shadowing him. I don't think Colville is nearly as good as the Pocket Rocket, but he seems to have a similar skill set without the puck).

The Davidson/Sullivan line will continue to be used in pure shutdown situations - defensive zone draws and holding leads at the end of the game and the like. So I'll change the OP to list Houle primarily on the third line.

Aurele Joliat - Cyclone Taylor - Bryan Hextall, Sr
Tommy Smith - Eric Lindros - Vic Stasiuk
Johnny Gottselig (A) - Neil Colville - Rejean Houle/Wilf Paiement
Bob Davidson - Red Sullivan - Wilf Paiement/Rejean Houle

How does this work out for ice time? Houle gets extra ice time at the expense of Paiement and to a lesser extent Stasiuk. NJ's top line will be unchanged; I have no problem going power on power on occasion and certainly don't want to reduce Bryan Hextall's ice time.

Vs Andy Bathgate. I don't think Bathgate necessarily needs specialized attention like Bobby Hull, but it can't hurt to gameplan for him, as he's the best winger in the draft to find himself on a second line. I think Aurele Joliat is pretty clearly the best defensive player in either team's top 6, so why not match NJ's top line against Halifax's 2nd as often as possible?

 

[Sturminator]

I'll field a couple of arguments on Halifax's behalf because I dunno how much time the team's GMs will have.

- the weak point of New Jersey is clearly the 2nd line, which leans quite heavily on Eric Lindros. Halifax already has the advantage of maybe the best 3rd line center in the draft to match up with Lindros in Walt Tkaczuk, and should pursue this matchup whenever possible. If I were managing Halifax, I'd move Mayorov up to the 3rd line to give it more offensive pop, and then back it up with the Salming - Pulford top pairing and really try to physically abuse Lindros, and take him out of the game completely. Turn New Jersey into a one line team as much as possible (though I respect the skill of the Devils' 3rd line).

- if Big E is not producing, that second line is going to do very little damage, which further opens the gap of Halifax's biggest advantage in the series, which is on the second line. The Bathgate line is already far and away better than the Lindros line, and if Lindros is not producing, this becomes a potentially enormous, game-changing advantage.

 

[MadArcand]

Halifax already has the advantage of maybe the best 3rd line center in the draft to match up with Lindros in Walt Tkaczuk

Aren't Datsyuk and Carbonneau (and likely more I don't remember off the top of my head) 3rd line centers this ATD?

 

[seventieslord]

Aren't Datsyuk and Carbonneau (and likely more I don't remember off the top of my head) 3rd line centers this ATD?

I think he's saying "the best 3rd line center to match against Lindros", as in Tkaczuk is better up against Lindros than those two would be.

 

[Johnny Engine]

I would assume the emphasis is on "to match up with Lindros" there.

Other bottom-six centres you may want to match Lindros, by the same criteria: Otto, Holik, Mahovlich (not so much Little M, but you get the point). Tkaczuk is likely the best of those.

 

[MadArcand]

I think he's saying "the best 3rd line center to match against Lindros", as in Tkaczuk is better up against Lindros than those two would be.

Yeah I think that's it. Sorry I'm drunk ATM.

But that makes sense (even if I'd pick Otto first there, but that's what the 'arguable' qualifier is there for).

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'll field a couple of arguments on Halifax's behalf because I dunno how much time the team's GMs will have.

- the weak point of New Jersey is clearly the 2nd line, which leans quite heavily on Eric Lindros. Halifax already has the advantage of maybe the best 3rd line center in the draft to match up with Lindros in Walt Tkaczuk, and should pursue this matchup whenever possible. If I were managing Halifax, I'd move Mayorov up to the 3rd line to give it more offensive pop, and then back it up with the Salming - Pulford top pairing and really try to physically abuse Lindros, and take him out of the game completely. Turn New Jersey into a one line team as much as possible (though I respect the skill of the Devils' 3rd line).

- if Big E is not producing, that second line is going to do very little damage, which further opens the gap of Halifax's biggest advantage in the series, which is on the second line. The Bathgate line is already far and away better than the Lindros line, and if Lindros is not producing, this becomes a potentially enormous, game-changing advantage.

Thanks for saying a few words, Sturm. A few comments:

-I totally agree that NJ's weak point is the 2nd line. This draft, I tried something that other GMs have done in the past (with mixed results), but that I had never done before - draft my 3rd line center before drafting a single 2nd line winger. I also ended up putting the man who is probably my 3rd best winger (Johnny Gottselig) on my 3rd line, rather than 2nd line. As is, I feel that the Gottselig - Colville duo is one of the better 3rd line duos in the draft, but my 2nd line did take a hit as a consequence.

-Basically, I feel my secondary scoring is balanced between the "2nd" and "3rd" line, rather than being more concentrated on the 2nd. So even if Halifax managed to take out NJ's 2nd line, they still wouldn't be a one-line team.

-You got ahead of me in mentioning Tkaczuk - I was going to mention that while he's well suited to check against Mark Messier and Phil Esposito (both in our division), he's less well suited to check the sheer speed of Cyclone Taylor. So matching him up against big boy Lindros makes sense. (Also, well done turning Tkaczuk's potential weakness against Taylor into a strength against Lindros; not sarcastic).

-I don't think it makes sense to match up Halifax's top defensive pair against Lindros, however. Sure, it helps shut him down. But then, who is left to defend against NJ's top line? Gary Bergman is a decent well-rounded #4, but he's not a defensive whiz at this level. And my read on Suchy as "responsible in his own zone... for an offense-first guy."

-At 5'8," 168 lbs, Suchy wasn't tiny for the late 60s/early 70s, but he was definitely smaller than average. Asking him to handle the extremely physical goal scorer Bryan Hextall (as LD against RW) is an awful lot to handle.

-IMO, Art Ross's best strategy would be to match Tkaczuk against Lindros, but use Salming/Pulford against NJ's top line, just so NJ's top line doesn't blow Halifax away.

-If Lindros does get shut down, it still doesn't prevent him from bashing in faces. Between Lindros, and Stasiuk, there is an extreme amount of physicality on NJ's second line. That's an awful lot of room created for Tommy Smith, a player with his issues (seemed to be a big cherrypicker at least in the second half of his career), but a guy who was excellent at what he did - scoring goals.

-This is all assuming Ross gets the matchups he wants, which is far from a guarantee when he's facing a significantly better coach (more on that later) with home ice advantage.

-Related to what I said above, one thing I want to stress about this NJ team is the sheer amount of physicality coming from RW. Hextall, Stasiuk, and Paiement were all extremely physical players. When Bobby Hull is on the ice, NJ's RWs have to pay attention to him first and foremost, but when he isn't, they can focus on pounding Halifax's defensemen; as alluded to above, this could be a particular issue for Jan Suchy, a man with a ton of heart (first Euro defenseman famous for blocking shots in addition to his offensive exploits), but just not a big man.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Art Ross is an interesting character. Long time Bruins GM and sometimes coach. Known as an innovator, creating the kitty-bar-the-door system (a very early version of the trap) as a player, and "power play offense" (an even strength system that involved getting Eddie Shore involved in the offense). I believe Tarasov himself studied Art Ross's methods in formulating early Soviet hockey.

On the other hand, as an actual NHL coach, Ross's playoff record is quite poor, considering the strength of the teams he put together as GM. In the 21 years from 1925 to 1945, Ross was head coach for 16, winning 1 Cup. Other men coached the team for 5 years out of this time, winning 2 Cups (Cy Denneny was head coach in 1929, Art Ross in 1939, and Cooney Weiland in 1941). Overall, the Bruins (led for the majority of this time by Eddie Shore, later by Schmidt/Cowley/Brimsek) were the 1st place regular season team 10 times during this 21 year period, and 2nd place in the regular season 4 more times, so their overall playoff record has to be something a disappointment.

See: http://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BOS/

Another way to look at it. From 1925-1945, despite coaching a dominant regular season team, Art Ross has a 27-33-5 record in the playoffs (in the late 20s, ties in the early rounds were allowed). The other 5 Bruins coaches during this period combined for a 17-11-0 record (Cy Denneny 5-0-0, Frank Patrick 2-4-0, Cooney Weiland 10-7-0). Fairly small samples, but it suggests that as a bench boss, Ross perhaps wasn't the biggest difference maker in the playoffs, like a Hap Day.

I know Art Ross's Bruins weren't the most disciplined team in the playoffs, with a Eddie Shore in particular seeing his PIMs balloon in the playoffs.

What does it mean for the ATD? Ross is a great tactician and innovator, but perhaps not the greatest bench boss. Is this similar to Roger Neilson who some view as an elite assistant coach to a head coach who is a great motivator and bench boss but not necessarily tactician himself, but not really the best head coach himself?

 

[seventieslord]

For most of Ross' career, his first place bruins had to go up against another first place team in round one. That partially explains why his teams seemed like disappointments, at least.

 

[Sturminator]

New Jersey wins in 7-OT
- Three stars: Taylor, Bathgate, Fetisov